Lin launched a barrage of kicks that forced Ren to use the dagger as a shield. The teacher was so fast she could avoid the blade at the last mont of impact by moving her foot and claws around it.
Each strike tested the limits of physics and his reflexes.
The golden crystal blazed intensely with each impact, dispersing the kinetic energy that would have knocked Ren out with the first successful hit. The weapon humd each ti with the canceled force.
"Isaac really outdid himself with that thing," Lin murmured appreciatively while pulling back to recover montum. "But like your body, a weapon is only as good as whoever uses it. And you... you’re still acting like prey instead of predator."
She paused mid-circle, her eyes narrowing.
"Accept that you’re not ready to help with this. Let soone else solve it. It’s not your responsibility."
Ren felt a spark of genuine anger, an emotion similar to the day Leopold had dared to place his problems above Ren’s. An emotion he had been trying to control since losing his fungus.
The feeling burned in his chest like molten tal.
"I’m not prey," he finally responded, his voice filled with determination that surprised even him. "I won’t step aside, and I decide what’s my responsibility."
"Not?" Lin smiled, beginning another circle. Her claws clicked against stone with each step. "Good. I don’t dislike stubbornness in my student... but then prove it. Stop reacting to my attacks and create space for your own. Stop depending on that shiny toy and use your body as the extension of your will it should be."
The criticism was fair but painful.
And ultimately, although Lin accepted that he could "play" and develop however he wanted, she also didn’t love the idea of learning to use weapons.
Still, she was right. Throughout the entire fight, Ren had been in defensive mode, using the dagger to compensate for his disadvantages instead of creating offensive opportunities.
Lin concentrated, and Ren could feel her mana pressure intensify. The air itself seed to thicken around her transford form.
When she attacked this ti, it was with the clear intention of ending the combat.
Her legs moved with the sa techniques that Ren recognized from years of observation, but executed at a speed and with a force that surpassed everything he had faced until now.
She was no longer trying to ’softly’ knock him out.
She was trying to finish this now.
Ren found himself constantly losing ground. His dodges beca more desperate, his counterattacks still failing to begin. The large difference in basic statistics was starting to show its inevitable weight.
The dagger increased Ren’s arm reach, yes. But Lin’s reach was still greater. Her transford extremities gave her advantages that no amount of basic ’elental tricks’ could completely compensate for.
One strike passed so close to his head that he felt the air displacent cut strands of his hair. Another blow resonated against the side of the dagger on his left arm with enough force to temporarily numb it.
The impact traveled up his bones.
His grip faltered for a heartbeat.
"Very good, very good," Lin stopped abruptly, her eyes shining with sothing that could have been genuine pride. "You’re still standing... You’ve improved incredibly in technique since you lost half your power."
She relaxed slightly, though she maintained her guard.
"A week ago, this fight would have ended in our first exchange."
But her expression hardened again, focus returning.
"But I’m not going to let you go anyway... So now cos the hard part. I’m going to co with every intention of hurting you again. Are you ready?"
It was a genuine question, not mockery. Lin really wanted to see if Ren had developed a solution for the apparently unsolvable problem she represented.
A teacher’s challenge wrapped in a threat.
Ren felt emotions intensifying in his chest, combining in a resonance that made the energy encysted in his core respond with greater force.
He concentrated on them, released air slowly. The mana flowed more freely through his body from his chest, and his elental control sharpened. Wind responded with greater precision, earth obeyed with more fluidity.
The world seed to slow by fractions.
Lin noticed the change imdiately.
"If you still want this," she murmured, studying the way Ren’s mana had begun to flow more naturally.
She attacked again, but this ti Ren was prepared in a different way.
Instead of simply reacting, he began to anticipate. His intimate knowledge of Lin’s movent patterns, combined with his perception enhanced by the intense emotional state, allowed him to see the tiny openings he had been missing.
Three years of observation crystallized into true understanding.
The dagger moved with real offensive purpose for the first ti in the fight. Not just blocking or deflecting, but actively seeking opportunities to counterattack.
Lin had to retreat half a step when the golden blade passed dangerously close to her left thigh.
"You did it!" she exclaid with genuine delight. "Finally you’re fighting instead of just defending!"
The exchange that followed was different from everything they had done during years of training. Ren wasn’t simply trying to react... he was trying to hit.
Each movent had offensive intention. His earth control now created advantages for him and disadvantages for Lin, forcing her to adjust her positioning. His wind control didn’t just help him dodge; it subtly interfered with her movents.
And the dagger... the dagger had beco an extension of his will, exactly as Lin had said his body should be.
The weapon sang through the air with deadly precision.
But even with all these improvents in the situation, Lin was still vastly superior in speed. She was also adapting to the new tricks. Gradually, she began to regain control of the combat.
Experience versus inspiration.
Age versus youth.
A series of particularly vicious kicks forced Ren back into a desperate defensive position. He could feel his intensified emotional energy beginning to fade under the constant pressure.
His breathing grew ragged.
His movents slowed.
"You impressed ," Lin admitted while pressing him backward. "You really impressed . But new tricks are tricks, and accumulated experience is experience. You’ve done everything you could do."
Her next attacks ca with the clear intention of ending the combat definitively. Ren knew he had maybe one more opportunity before his new ways of using elental control were completely exhausted.
This was it. Last chance.
So he concentrated all into one mont of perfect coordination between elents.
Lin launched a spinning kick that Ren managed to dodge to get inside Lin’s close range.
Wind for speed, earth for positioning, and...
In the last second, he added light.
The teacher released a jab, but Ren used all his resources to ’avoid it’ at the last mont.
Spatial jumps were too slow in their aftermath, when appearing still and blind for an instant against fast tars like Lin. But if you could ti it perfectly in a very short range of movent you can make yourself intangible for an instant in a flash.
And that wasn’t all...
The golden dagger blazed like a miniature sun when Ren channeled luminous energy through the crystal. The flash was instantaneous and blinding, designed specifically to exploit the golden weapon’s crystal body.
The burst of radiance turned the rocky clearing into a miniature dawn.
Lin, with her senses enhanced by transformation, received the full impact of the flash directly in her enhanced eyes.
For the first ti in the entire fight, she faltered.
Her eyes closed instinctively, tears beginning to form from the sudden intensity of light. Her perfect posture wavered for one crucial mont.
And in that mont, Ren finally saw his opportunity.
The dagger poised directly before his teacher’s chest.
Anger still flowed through his veins. The golden dagger was perfectly aligned with Lin’s chest, barely centiters away.
One simple, direct thrust, and his teacher would be... incapacitated?
But as energy coursed through his muscles, preparing them for the decisive blow, the image of Lin collapsing with a serious wound materialized in his mind.
The woman who had trained him for three years.
Who had molded him from a child into soone who could face this level of technical battle.
Who had believed in him at the beginning when no one else would.
The power that had been flowing so naturally began to falter. Frustration, determination, love and respect for his master... everything mixed together. Guilt blended with anger, creating a dissonance that weakened his control when he needed it most.
The internal war raged in milliseconds that felt like hours.
’I can’t...’ The thought paralyzed him for a crucial fraction of a second. ’I can’t risk her life like this.’
The hesitation cost him his victory.
Lin, still with her eyes closed and tears forming at their corners, felt his mana signature shift. Her combat instincts, honed by decades of experience, reacted automatically.
Her right leg bent like a compressed spring, using her hip as a pivot in a contortion that defied normal anatomy.
The kick ca from an impossible angle, seeking Ren’s face.
User Comments
0 comments from readers